On December 15, the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage of women from 18 years to 21 years. During the Independence Day address in August 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the same and said the Government was planning to amend the law for the same. He again pointed out the same in an address to the people of the nation in October 2020 and said the government would soon take a decision over it. Once the law is amended, the legal marriageable age for both men and women would become the same, i.e. 21 years.
According to reports, the Government would soon introduce amendments to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, personal laws such as the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act.
Interestingly, the Muslim Personal Law will also be reportedly amended to raise the minimum age of marriage for women, which is currently 15 years. For all other personal laws in India along with the special marriage act, the minimum age of the bride is 18 years while the same for the groom is 21 years. After the amendments, the minimum age of marriage for women will be 21 years under all personal laws.
Niti Aayog recommended amendments in December 2020
A special task force was constituted by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development which was headed by Jaya Jaitly. It also included Niti Aayog’s VK Paul and secretaries of Education Ministry, WCD Health Ministry, and of Legislative Department to examine “matters pertaining to the age of motherhood, imperatives of lowering MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate), improvement of nutritional levels and related issues”. The proposal was based on recommendations given by the task force in December 2020.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had mentioned the task force during her Budger Speech for 2020-21. She had said, “Women’s age of marriage was increased from 15 years to 18 years in 1978, by amending the erstwhile Sharda Act of 1929. As India progresses further, opportunities open up for women to pursue higher education and careers. There are imperatives of lowering MMR as well as improvement of nutrition levels. The entire issue about the age of a girl entering motherhood needs to be seen in this light.”
The Indian Express quoted Jaitly saying, “I want to make clear that our reasoning behind the recommendation was never one of population control. Recent data released by NFHS 5 (National Family Health Survey) have already shown that the Total Fertility Rate is decreasing and the population is under control. The idea behind it (the recommendation) is the empowerment of women.”
Recently, NFHS 5 released data that suggested that India has attained a Total Fertility Rate of 2.0 for the first time that was below the replacement level of TFR at 2.1. The data suggested that it was highly unlikely that a population explosion would happen in the coming years. The data also revealed that the percentage of child marriages had marginally come down from 23 per cent in 2019-21 compared to 27 per cent in 2015-16.
Jaitly added the recommendation from the task came after “extensive consultations with experts, and more importantly with young adults, especially young women as the decision affects them directly”. She said, “We have had feedback from 16 universities and engaged over 15 NGOs to reach out to young people, particularly in rural and marginalised communities, such as in particular districts in Rajasthan where child marriage is quite prevalent. Feedback was taken across religions, and from urban and rural areas, equally.”
She added that the feedback task force received from young adults that the age of marriage should be 22-23 years. “There have been objections from certain quarters, but we felt it was more important to be guided by the target group,” she said.
The task force further recommended that public awareness campaigns should be planned to encourage social acceptance of the decision. It also recommended the awareness campaign should reach out to schools and universities, transportation departments for better access to girls to promote the decision.
It also recommended formalised school curriculum on sex education for schools along with training of women in polytechnic institutes, skills and business training and livelihood enhancement so that the increase in marriageable age gets easier to implement.
